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The idea of absolute control means exerting one’s will over every aspect of an organization from the very top down to the lowliest position. In their drive to control America from the top down, it is insufficient for the Koch brothers to control Congress and the Supreme Court without owning the occupant of the White House any more than controlling every Republican state legislature without control over those state’s city and county governments. It is true the Koch’s are poised to spend nearly a billion dollars to put a Koch surrogate in the White House, and to completely take over the entire nation they are paying an American Legislative Exchange Council subsidiary to impose their corporate agenda on every town, village, city, and county in America.

Many Americans have never heard of the Koch brothers much less their legislative arm in Congress and, more importantly, state legislatures across the country. What the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) does is allow corporations to write legislation for Republicans to introduce and then pass into law. Corporations pay the Koch brothers’ ALEC for the privilege of allowing their operatives to write corporate legislation for Republicans and it makes ALEC, and now a subsidiary, more powerful than any special interest, lobbyist, state legislator, and in the majority of cases informs how and why corporations control Republican state governments. Apparently, though, controlling state legislatures is not enough for the Kochs and their corporate cabal so they set their sights on local jurisdictions like city councils, mayors, school districts, and county supervisory boards to round out their sphere of corporate influence on America from the federal government down to the local village council.

The American City County Exchange (ACCE) is an offshoot of (ALEC) that describes itself as “America’s only free market forum for village, town, city and county policymakers.” Beginning in 2015, ACCE became an ALEC-operated project and not a separate Koch-funded social welfare 501(c)(3} charitable non-profit organization. Like its mother organization ALEC, ACCE is wholly funded by corporations whose operatives write and vote for “model legislation and measures” for city and county governments to give the Koch brothers and corporations complete control of every jurisdiction in the nation regardless of size.

From the Supreme Court to the halls of Congress to governor’s mansions across the country, conservatives have ruthlessly pushed an agenda that has torn America asunder since 1980. As 2011 comes to a close, conservatives are still trying to push failed policies. This is a list of 15 individual conservatives that pose a significant threat to American society as we move into 2012 and beyond.

1. John Roberts) The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court leads four other conservative judges on the bench. Placed on the high court by President Bush, John Roberts has been influential in changing campaign finance laws (Citizens United) and has since ruled in favor of big corporations. And the conservative court isn’t through yet. Conservatives desire to overturn abortion, environmental laws, President Obama’s health care law, and voting rights laws, and you can bet that they are aiming to use the Supreme Court to do it.

2. Eric Cantor) The House Majority Leader has been very busy since his party took over the House in 2010. Cantor has proven that he has more power than John Boehner does, hence the fact that Boehner isn’t even on the list. Cantor is willing to do whatever it takes to slam every right-wing bill through Congress. He also has the backing of Tea Party House members. Cantor is still young, which means he could be a major player on the right for decades to come. It’s also likely that he could be the next Speaker of the House if the GOP keeps control after the 2012 Election.

3. Clarence Thomas) The second Supreme Court Justice to make the list has deep ties to the conservative movement. He has ties to Koch Industries and has received money from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations. He has refused to recuse himself from cases that he has ties to and that is what makes him dangerous. Thomas ruled with the other conservatives in Citizens United even though he had a conflict of interest in that case as well. As long as he is on the bench with Roberts, outside influences can dictate how the conservative wing rules.

4. Mitch McConnell) He may be the Senate Minority Leader but that doesn’t make McConnell any less poisonous to America. He has led the effort to block and stall many important pieces of legislation in the Senate and has blocked Presidential nominees from taking their posts, leaving many departments leaderless. We’ll see more of the same thing in 2012.

5. Paul Ryan) The second member of the U.S. House of Representatives to make the list, Ryan is a major threat because he introduced legislation that would kill Medicare by privatizing it. Essentially, Ryan’s plan throws all American senior citizens under a speeding bus. Ryan isn’t an old man either. He could remain active in politics for decades, which means his ideas will still be around as well. Even if the people of Wisconsin don’t re-elect him to Congress, Ryan could still join any conservative think tank or organization, or become a lobbyist. They would love to have him too. Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are in danger as long as Ryan is around.

6. Scott Walker) The first of two governors on the list has been busy since he took office. The Governor of Wisconsin is on this list because he is an example of just how involved the Koch brothers are in shaping public policy. Under Walker’s “leadership” he has severely weakened labor unions and worker’s rights, weakened environmental laws, weakened pubic education, weakened voter rights, and has put public lands and facilities up for grabs as a way to increase privatization. Some of these facilities are of deep interest to the Koch brothers. As further evidence that Walker is basically a Koch slave, he took a fake call from a person pretending to be David Koch at the height of the collective bargaining debate. Walker could very well be recalled by the people of Wisconsin but Walker intends to sabotage that effort. Walker’s career in Wisconsin may not last beyond this year, but that doesn’t make him any less of a threat, as governors around the country are following his lead and he could always run for federal office later on.

Macy’s store mannequin and Republican frontrunner (just don’t tell Republicans that), Mitt Romney, is notorious for taking a position, tergiversating on that position, and then choosing a new position on which to tergiversate to reflect the latest poll or Republican talking point de jour.

As Governor of a liberal blue-state, Mitt Romney was pro-choice (or multiple choice as Ted Kennedy once derided during a debate). He was also one of the lone moderate Republicans to actually heed the advice of celebrated climatologists (instead of the janitor at Exxon) regarding climate change, only to repudiate his belief in man-made activities contributing to climate change. And, most notorious, Romney has devoted most of his time on the stump –and debates– meticulously renouncing his mandate health plan he created in Massachusetts, which served as a template for Obama’sAffordable Care Act.

Regarding his abrupt change in philosophy, Romney said “‘What works in one state may not be the answer for another.” It looks like the Gordon Gekko candidate is more like Gordon Chameleon, carefully changing and saying anything and everything that teabagger republicans want to hear in order to get elected. The Obama relection campaign has publicly cited plans to devote a portion of its campaign strategy on this very phenomenon.

When pressed by a New Hampshire editorial board about his famous vacillations on kep political issues over the last decade, Romney this to say:

”I’ve been as consistent as human beings can be.”

Are you serious, Mittens? That’s the type of verbal gymnastics and philosophical expostulating one would expect from former president Bill Clinton when confronted with the meaning of blow jobs.

Romney has formally said that “corporations are people,” and since humans are prone to err, is he saying that he is about as consistent as a corporation. Or, is he making a commentary on human beings’ inability to be consistent.

I don’t think Lao Zsu himself could wax philosophical on the intrinsic meaning behind Romney’s justification for lying and changing his position on everything under the sun, including the sun. Then again, Romney can pretty much say anything with the pizza perv receiving so much media scrutiny over his past sexual shenanigans.

Why shouldn’t profitable corporations and finance-savvy individuals pay back to the system that made them rich? Why shouldn’t they pay for government-funded research, national security, infrastructure, and untaxed financial speculation opportunities?

They don’t want to pay, and that should make the rest of us angry. But if you don’t like being angry, heed the advice of Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein: “Everybody should be, frankly, happy…the financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out.”

George Carlin performed this stage act a few years ago, but he tells us what we already know. Heck, FDR spoke of the greedy bastards (Corporations, Bankers, robber barons, etc.) decades ago when the most memorable part of that speech was, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself…”